Stuck Genie (iPhone) Review

Costas Stephanides’s Review

Rubbing it doesn't always work

Cobra Mobile, the guys behind Numba, are back with another mental challenger that will surely frustrate the puzzlemaniacs (for all the right reasons).

Fans of their older hit, Mouse About, will instantly find their feet with the mechanics in Stuck Genie. You start by moving a gold ball around a maze and you have to collect all the blue balls along the way. This isn't a game of a tilt coordination but rather logic with touch controls. Using their swipe anywhere controls you swipe left/right/up/down to move the gold ball. A lit path shows how far your ball will move; you can just move one square at a time if you like.

Manoeuvring around the mazes can be tricky and in later levels, there are only a few possible solutions for each level. One key part to the game is the ability to rotate your stack of balls. The gold ball acts as the pivot point and tap the rotate button will rotate the balls clockwise.

Graphically, the game does the job. It is only a puzzle game so don't expect too many flashy special effects although the background music is quite a treat.

There are 73 levels in total and by about level 25 I found the levels start to really get interesting. Score multipliers are available if you finish a level in a fast time but once you complete a level you cannot go back to repeat (although technically you could load up a new profile score junkies can play both profiles simultaneously).

The only niggles with the game is a lack of undoing the last move - this can obviously get a little annoying if you've accidentally overshot and have to repeat the whole level. Also, the game doesn't auto save or suspend play. To save your level progress you have to exit back to the main menu. Hopefully these can be addressed in an update but either way, fans of the genre will be very happy with their Genie in an iPhone.